Friday, June 01, 2007

A Pain in the Neck

Literally.See the back of Rob's throat? You don't? Really? Well neither do I. That's because his tonsils are bigger than his 'nads. They are HUGE. Poor kid. I had my tonsils ripped from my throat when I was five. Ah, yes, I remember it well. My mother told me that after the surgery I could have all the ice cream I wanted. What nobody told me is that I WOULDN'T WANT ANY. Because it hurt too bad to swallow. Trickery! Treachery!

And then...and THEN, I told the nurse in the recovery room that I had to tinkle. She brought me a bedpan. Welllll OK-alrighty then. I don't think so. Even at age five I wasn't big on public urination. I crawled from my deathbed and started walking the halls, looking for a bathroom. What did I find? A men's room. Apparently my shyness did not extend to cross-gender issues.

So, back to the boy with golf balls in his mouth. I thought that he might be able to keep them since he hadn't experienced the constant problems I did. But at his last check-up the doctor was all, "Holy crap on a stick! This boy has 'NADS at the back of his throat! It is double-nad disease! I've only read about cases like this!" Then she asked if he snored (yes, bad), said he also has a deviated septum, and wrote out a referral for an ENT. That stands for ExtraNastyTonsils. Or maybe EachNostril is Tiny.

Since I have not yet taken him to the ENT, the gods frowned upon my parental slackitudeness and now Rob has strep throat. At least he handles it well. He still played baseball tonight. I didn't tell the five coaches or any of the players that he hasn't yet started taking antibiotics. Ooops.

When I get strep I feel like I have the King Mack Daddy of all hangovers, which causes me to roll up into a ball and cry for days. My kid? He went to the game. They lost, but he played hard. Because he's Super 'Nad Neck.

Footnote: The silver line on Rob's teeth is his new retainer. Which cost an extra $150 after he lost the first one. At least they got the color right this time: green with glitter. Fancy.